Dear Crabby,
Who washes the dishes at your house? My husband and I are always going back and forth on who should be doing this job. Can you please recommend a way for us to settle this argument?
Sincerely, Nancy NoSlack
Dear Ms. NoSlack,
I do not usually like to get involved with other peoples’ arguments. Inevitably, one person likes what I say and the other is angry; except for every once in a while when everybody is angry with me! I will simply tell you how this has worked out at my house. When I was first married, I was under the impression that I was to bring home the bacon and she was to keep the household in order. To me that meant that I would go and do my job and then when I got home, I was to put my feet up and relax while she cooked, cleaned, and raised the kids. It seemed like that was the way it was on television, and that was the expectation of the day. Those first couple weeks were great! She couldn’t wait to serve me and I couldn’t wait to be served. Then something must have happened. I think I should have paid more attention to the friends she was hanging out with. All of the sudden she 
asked me why I wasn’t helping in the kitchen more. I told her that I had absolutely no idea how to cook anything. She said that was fine and that she would cook, but would appreciate help cleaning up a bit. So I started rinsing the dishes after meals and loading them in the dishwasher. Doing the dishes ended up being a pretty good gig; after all, you know what they say starts in the kitchen, right? Well, that leads us to a couple years and a couple kids later. At that point, I was walking in the door as a child was flying through the air into my arms after being launched by its mother. She was at her max, and there was no way I was going to get away with sitting around while she made dinner and cleaned up. I learned to change diapers and to clean up the house too. I guess when I was watching Leave it to Beaver and Ward Cleaver was always sitting around in his lounge-wear and slippers while June was just as happy as a clam to serve everyone and smile pretty, I failed to realize that was only a half hour show – the other 23.5 hours of the day probably looked more like my life! So I would say that you should discuss with the big guy how to divvy up those chores and make everyone happy. I know that Mrs. Crabby would say that my job was only 8 hours a day at the office and hers was 24 hours a day at home, so if I wanted to split things up evenly I needed to put in an extra 16 hours once I got home. After that perspective, I was more than happy to just wash some dishes and change some diapers instead! Good luck, and let me know how it works out.
Sincerely, Dear Crabby
Stuck in a rut? Need some biased advice from a crabby old baby-boomer? G0 to www.DearCrabby.org and ask your question.
About Dear Crabby